Chapter 8 — Playing Poor with the Heiress

His gaze lingered on To Niem for a moment. Just a single moment. Yet, within that look, there was something else—suspicion. He had linked the recent financial data leak to her. A new administrative hire, constantly hovering around the finance department to reconcile records, followed immediately by a headquarters audit; any person with even a shred of intellect would connect the dots. Wang De Fa might be dim-witted, but when it came to self-preservation, his intuition was surprisingly sharp. He pulled his gaze away, grabbed his car keys, and departed. He left work earlier than anyone else. He was going to handle those books. But was there still time? The audit wasn't until Thursday, and today was Monday. Three days. In that window, he had to either launder the funds or fabricate the operations of that advertising agency until every seam was airtight. To be honest, if he had only tampered with a few contracts or supplemented a couple of performance reports, a standard internal audit might very well miss it. After all, internal audits aren't disciplinary inspections; they are often merely procedural. But what if, even before the audit began, someone had already submitted a list of issues and a detailed chain of evidence?

I glanced at To Niem. She was tidying her desk, preparing to leave. Her movements were calm, just as they always were. However, I noticed her phone screen light up. A WeChat message appeared; I couldn't clearly see the sender's name, but I caught a single word: "Dad." She was reporting back to her father. The intelligence network of To Vien Son likely possessed primary-source material long before the audit team did. On this chessboard, the internal audit of Than Huy was merely the public process. Beneath it, the To Clan Capital was conducting a credit assessment for investment decisions. And at an even deeper layer, my father and her father—two old foxes—were each maneuvering their children into the fray. The question was: did they know the other’s child was also here?

I pulled out my phone and messaged Old Chu: "Help me check if To Vien Son and my father have met privately recently." Old Chu replied almost instantly: "Checked. Last month, there was a dinner at a private club in the Capital. Just the two of them, no assistants." I set the phone down. Last month. To Niem arrived at Than Huy two weeks ago. The timeline aligned perfectly. Perhaps this wasn't an independent appraisal after all. Maybe those two old men had reached a tacit understanding: his daughter would come to examine the management of my company, and in the process, she would also see what kind of "merchandise" his son was. A blind date.

The phrase popped into my mind, and a chill crawled down my spine. No way. Dammit, I had been playing poor at this company for eight months, eating takeout for eight months, only to find out my father had set up an undercover blind date for me? I wanted to call and demand answers, but I held back. Because this was just a hypothesis. Maybe To Niem came to Than Huy purely out of business necessity. Maybe that dinner was about something else. Maybe I was overthinking it. But what if I wasn't? What if To Vien Son knew my true identity and To Niem knew it too? What if she had known who I was from day one, while I walked around feeling clever, thinking I was the one standing in the shadows watching her?

No. That couldn't be right. If she knew, she wouldn't have needed to borrow that two thousand five hundred from me. That action was too genuine. Furthermore, when she had asked me, "Who are you, really?", the confusion in her eyes hadn't been an act. She truly did not know who I was—at least, not yet. But her father might. The trajectory of this game depended on whether To Vien Son had told her the truth. If he hadn't, then we were both just pawns. If he had, then I was the only clown in the room.

I took a deep breath and decided on a course of action: a probe. Tuesday morning, I arrived ten minutes early. The office was mostly empty; To Niem’s desk was still vacant. I placed a cup of coffee on her desk—a paper cup without a logo. Inside was a hand-brewed specialty roast I had gone out of my way to buy that morning: a light-roast Guatemala La Flor. This was a signal. If she understood coffee—and she undoubtedly did—she would know this wasn't something picked up at a nearby convenience store. If she asked me where I bought it, I would study her reaction. If she drank it without asking, it would mean she had chosen to continue the charade.

At eight-forty, To Niem arrived. She froze when she saw the coffee, her gaze sweeping toward me. I kept my eyes on my computer screen, observing her through my peripheral vision. She picked up the cup, lifted the lid, and took a scent. The corner of her mouth twitched. She had recognized it. Then, she held the cup toward me, gave it a slight tilt, and mouthed two words: "Thank you." I nodded and returned to my work. All morning, she didn't ask where I had bought it. No interrogation, no probing. She drank it in silence. This indicated two things: first, she accepted the coffee as a form of communication; second, she had decided not to expose our shared secret of "playing poor" at this moment.

It was a draw. We were both waiting. Waiting for the other to reveal their hand first. But Wang De Fa would not give us the luxury of time. During the lunch break, Ly Huong dragged me down to the noodle shop downstairs.